Two Fans And A Temporal Displacement Device
by Kleenexwoman
Summary: The title says it all, really.
1. Part I

Title: Two Fans And A Temporal Displacement Device

Author: Kleenexwoman

E-mail: 

Rating: PG-13 for slight swearing and some mentions of S-E-X and for some slash. Not Beatleslash, sorry, don't get your hopes up, but there is some slash in here. And Beatles. Just not slash and Beatles together.

Disclaimer: None of the rock stars belong to me. Yoko Ono belongs to, I guess, whoever the hell she wants to belong to. But she can take that damn boxcar thing with her.

The PT Cruiser doesn't belong to me yet. Daniel used to belong to me but he doesn't anymore.

Notes: I originally wrote this for Daniel, my boyfriend. I promised him an orgy with David Bowie for his very own and a time travel story with the Beatles. Unfortunately, we broke up before I finished the story, but I had most of it done and I wanted to see what happened at the end.

This story in no way says anything at all about our relationship, so if you know me please don't go looking for clues. Thank you. And I don't feel this way about Yoko Ono. Really. Stop looking at me like that.

Paul is not dead, so pay no attention to the DJ behind the curtain. And the future comes no matter how much you scream…

This chapter's official song: William Shatner's version of "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds"

It was a mistake, all right? We were both seventeen and bored and curious. The parents weren't home and we were sure it was pretty safe. He and I were mature enough to handle it. We had been ready for this moment forever, but we weren't sure that it was ever going to happen before—now we knew, and there was no turning back.

And anyway, I really wanted to visit the 24th century.

What did you think I was talking about? Of course it's time travel. It's been a dream of teenage geeks for ages. Not up there with sex, of course, but…on the whole, actually, I would take the time travel. I don't know about Daniel, of course. He doesn't say very much on the subject, which is pretty cool. It leaves more time for us to talk about more important things, like how to apply the theory of relativity to gym class.

It was actually surprisingly easy to build the time machine. Daniel is an utter genius with computers, and I was weaned on Stephen Hawking and H.G. Wells. We designed the circuits together. I "borrowed" some of the machinery from my uncle's university (he teaches history, but I snuck into the science lab and managed to liberate a few things).

We built it into the PT Cruiser my dad bought for me. I had never driven it because I ride my bike everywhere, so I thought it would be a good idea.

Daniel grinned at me. "This is gonna be great."

"Uh-huh." I stuffed a pack of Kleenex into my backpack. "Okay, I think that's all we need."

"You got the water purification pills?"

"Check," I said.

"The Time-Life 20th Century Timeline book?"

"Also check."

"Packets of Gummi Bears?" Daniel is a diabetic, which means that if his blood sugar gets low, he gets sick and starts acting weird. It's really bad because he might go into a coma. Also, he needs to take insulin every so often. I didn't carry that in my backpack; Daniel's got an insulin pump and a blood level monitor he clips onto his belt.

"Check, although they might melt and stick together. You sure we shouldn't take PEZ instead?"

"That," said Daniel, "is an excellent idea. Plus, we can impress people with the dispensers."

I climbed into the passenger seat of the Cruiser. (I don't have my driver's license, but Daniel does. Which is odd, because out of the two of us, I happen to be the one that does NOT drive like a hyperactive badger.)

Daniel turned on the ignition. "Ready to plumb the depths of time and go where no teenagers, except for that annoying kid in the Back To The Future series, have gone before?"

"Yeah yeah yeah. Turn on the damn thing and let's go."

"Where do you want to go first? Beatles?"

"Well, that was originally the plan…" Daniel and I are both Beatles fans. The original inspiration for our project was that we would go back in time and keep John Lennon from being shot. Well, that was Daniel's idea, anyway. I thought that it was a good idea for us to go back to 1963 and keep JFK from being shot. It sort of cascaded from there, and we finally decided to improvise.

In retrospect, I guess we should have done a little more research on the consequences. It's the famous chaos effect. A butterfly flaps its wings in China and there's a rainstorm in the Amazon. (It's really a lot more complicated than that, but the butterfly example is the one that everybody always uses. Maybe that's why during a rainstorm, I keep seeing people running around trying to kill butterflies.)

But we were young and idealistic and didn't know what the hell we were doing. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I strongly urge you not to try this at home.

Daniel switched on the time travel device and stepped on the gas. The car made a nasty grinding sound.

"Why isn't it working?" he wondered.

"It's in Park," I said. We had hooked it up so that the machine was hooked to the gas. The speedometer showed how many years we went back or forward, and the odometer showed the date. Drive meant going forward and Reverse meant going back. We had originally wanted Neutral to mean being frozen in time, but the natural logistical problems had presented themselves, and we couldn't manage it anyway.

Daniel sighed and shifted it into Drive. "Twenty-fourth century, right?"

"The future!" I raised my fist. "At last, we shall see whether the predictions made by the prophet Gene Roddenberry shall be true. My guess," I added, "is that they will."

As Daniel stepped on the gas, the speedometer flashed. I looked out the window. The tree outside shed its leaves and sprouted them, grew a few inches, then grew some more. Days flashed by and turned into a blur. My house sank and then disappeared, to be replaced with a metal tank and then a rather pretty statue of some kind of bird.

"September first, 2347," Daniel announced. "Everybody out."

I hopped out first and took a big breath of the air. It smelled weird, like it had been recirculated through a musty house several times. "Ew," I announced.

Daniel sniffed the air. "That is a little weird. I guess the air has a slightly different composition, though. Maybe they've discovered a new type of fuel, and we're just smelling the emissions."

"Could be," I said. "Shall we explore?"

The 24th century was not that impressive. My subdivision had been replaced with a park, and the park near my house was a swoopy-looking apartment building. We walked around for a while until Daniel got tired.

I spotted a row of vending machines near the bench he was sitting on. "Wait here. I'm going to get something to drink."

I examined the options available. There was mineral water, something called Zorzamora that I figured was some kind of health drink, starfruit juice, coffee, and Coke. I dug out a buck and fed it into the machine, then pressed the button for a Coke.

The machine beeped. "Unauthorized material inserted in slot." It slid the dollar bill out, where it fluttered to the ground at my feet. "Please insert personal identification credit card."

"But I don't have one!" I protested. "These stupid machines. Why can't I just pay in cash?" I grumbled.

The machine beeped again. "Lack of personal identification credit card sensed. Please stay where you are."

"What? Shit." I looked around to see if anyone had noticed.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder. "Pardon me, miss. Is there a problem?"

"Yeah, the dumb machine won't take my money…" I turned around to face what I assumed was a policeman. He was wearing a brown jumpsuit and a dour expression.

"Ma'am, where is your personal identification credit card? You know you're supposed to have it with you at all times."

"Um…I left it at home."

"That is a finable offense and I am going to have to ask you to come with me."

The future was worse than high school. What had I gotten myself into? "Listen, I was just out for a walk with my boyfriend. I didn't think I'd need it."

The policeman frowned. "Your boyfriend, eh? Where is he?"

I pointed to where Daniel was sitting. "He's over there."

The policeman frog-marched me over to where Daniel was sitting. "Sir, do you know this young lady?"

Daniel stood up. "Yes, she's my girlfriend. Is there a problem?" To me, he whispered, "What the hell did you do?"

"I just wanted a Coke," I muttered.

"I'm going to have to see your relationship permit," the policeman interrupted.

I crossed my legs and shifted on the bench. "This sucks."

Daniel was staring straight ahead. "Next time, I think we ought to go through the future a few years at a time."

After we had failed to produce a relationship permit, we had been hauled off to whatever passed for a police station. The future wasn't so crass as to have anything as obsolete as a holding cell. Instead, we had to sit on a hard plastic bench that was covered by a force field.

"Hey, it was you that originally said the future was going to be just like Star Trek," I said.

"Well, I didn't know that we'd have to apply for a license to kiss!" Daniel slumped on the bench.

The force-field flickered, and a woman dressed in a wrinkled red leotard stepped in. "Are you the two that were caught without a relationship permit?"

"That's us," I muttered.

The woman smiled broadly. "Well, I have good news for you both. The judge is letting you off on a first offense! Our records show that you're both upstanding members of the community, so we think we can let it slide. The pictures on file don't look anything like you, though…"

"So we can go?" Daniel asked hopefully.

"Goodness, no. You've got to apply for a relationship permit! It only costs forty credits."

I stood up. "Uh, no thanks. We decided to break up."

"Things just weren't working out between us," Daniel chimed in. "Nope, no permit. We're just going to go back home now and never see each other again."

The woman wrinkled her forehead. "But…"

I brushed past her. "Thanks anyway. Gotta go."

We waited until we were both safely in the car to breathe.

"I think it would be a very, very bad idea to ever go to the future again," I said.

"I agree. So where do you want to go now?" Daniel gunned the motor.

"Don't do that!" I shrieked. "You're going to use up all the gas and we'll be stuck here."

"Listen, I know what I'm doing." Daniel gunned the motor again. "We have plenty of gas."

"Just don't do it anyways, okay? It's not good for the engine."

"Fine, fine." Daniel turned off the car. "Let's decide where we want to go before I start up the car, okay?"

"You mean when we want to go. I think we should go home for now." 


	2. Part II

This chapter's official song: "Revolution 9", by the Beatles with Yoko Ono

Back at home, I made some tea while Daniel fiddled around with the computer.

"What are you doing with that?" I asked.

"I'm trying to put in a teleportation device." Daniel took a cup and sipped. "Did you put any sugar in this?"

"No, but I have some packets of Equal. How did you figure out how to make a teleportation device?"

"It's a portable one. I snitched it off the policegirl's desk when we were in the station. If I can just figure out how to hook it up…" It was a little metal ball with blue LEDs on the side. He stared at it like a baboon staring at a 1985 DeLorean.

"Try attaching that wire to the little thing that says Output," I suggested.

He did. The LEDs lit up.

"I think it's working," I said.

"I think it is too. But without some kind of interface, there's no way we can control it."

"Hold on a second." I pulled down the GPS system that was on the visor. It didn't come with the standard cruiser model, but Dad had ordered it for me. He had a pathological fear of me getting lost.

The little GPS screen was glowing blue. Instead of the familiar grid of streets and the cursor set onto "Old Timber", it showed a map of the world and a little text box saying, "Where do you want to go today?"

"Wow. It's compatible." Daniel was impressed. "And it's made by Microsoft!"

We changed into appropriate 60s clothes. Daniel put on a pair of incredibly ugly corduroy bellbottoms, a fringed vest, a tie-dye T-shirt, and a beaded headband that I made for him. I was wearing my mom's old peasant skirt, a peasant blouse from Rue 21, a Leary High School letter jacket (colors: electric purple and puke orange) and flower-power patterned leggings.

Our first stop was 1967. I had wanted to go to one of the Beatles' Ed Sullivan shows, but Daniel pointed out that we didn't have tickets. I thought that was a very good point.

Daniel shifted the car into Reverse and positioned the GPS to somewhere in England. I wasn't sure where he put it; there had been much ado with an atlas and Mapquest shortly before we left while I was in the bathroom.

The trip was uneventful. I watched my house get built backwards, and then there was a weird whooshing sound as the teleportation device did its thing. We ended up on a sidestreet somewhere in London.

Daniel opened the door for me. "Come on! We have a happy couple to split up."

We slipped into the double doors of the art gallery. It was a huge white building, more akin to Saks or Nordstrom than to an artsy venue. Then again, the art galleries I'm used to are lofts that smell like paint, and cutesy little barns up north that sell potpourri and distressed chairs.

I wandered around looking at paintings. They weren't very good, more like blobby line drawings than anything that actually had any artistic merit. Daniel scouted out the place and shortly returned to me with a report.

"Our scarabs just walked in the door," he muttered. "Dragon lady is currently at hammer site. Advise."

"This isn't a James Bond film. Tell me, in plain English, what's going on."

Daniel sighed. "The Beatles just walked in and Yoko is over at the invisible hammer thing."

"Great. You take this pen, go up that ladder that has the magnifying glass with the index card that says YES glued to the ceiling. Write something stupid on it. I shall annoy Yoko."

Daniel skedaddled while I went to fulfill my duty.

My hackles rose at the sight of Yoko Ono. There she was: The woman who singlehandedly broke up the Beatles, turned one of the most talented artists of the 20th century into a heroin-addled, mystical mushmouth, and totally ruined modern art forever.

She smiled beatifically at me. "Hello. Hold this nail by this wall." She handed me nothing and indicated that I should hold it by nothing.

I gingerly took the nail between my fingers.

"Now give me sixpence and I will hammer it into the wall."

I dug in my purse with my other hand and dropped six pennies into her waiting hand. She pocketed them without looking at them. "Thank you. Now…" She tapped the place where the nail would be with the place where the hammer would be, steadied it, and took a big swing.

"OWWOAH!" I flapped my hand around. "That hurt! Jeez, can't you aim?" I started sucking on my thumb.

Yoko looked confused. "Why does your thumb hurt?"

"Cause you missed the nail! You hit my thumb. And it really hurts."

We had drawn a small crowd, Ringo among them. I winked at him. He grinned and motioned for the other Beatles to come over and watch the two crazy women.

"Your thumb should not hurt," Yoko explained. "The nail and the hammer were not real. They were simply representations of—"

"If they weren't real, I want my money back," I interrupted. "This show is a total ripoff. You're charging for something that doesn't even exist! And my thumb still hurts."

"They were invisible, all right? An invisible hammer and an invisible nail and an invisible wall. And I don't believe that your thumb hurts." She grabbed my hand and studied it. "I don't even see a bruise."

"Well, if it's an invisible hammer, of course it will leave an invisible bruise," I explained with dignity. "And my thumb still really hurts. I think you broke it. I need a bandage."

"I will call security to get you a bandage," Yoko offered.

"Never mind. I have an invisible one in my purse. It'll cost you fifty cents if anyone wants to watch me put it on." I was immediately deluged with the English equivalent of quarters. "Really? All right." I opened my purse and started an elaborate mime of putting on a Band-aid, peeling off the wax paper and wrapping it around my thumb. I held it up for inspection. People applauded.

Yoko grabbed my arm. "This is my show!" she hissed at me. "I am the artist here."

"Some artist. You charge six cents to hit people with an invisible hammer."

She blew up. "BAKA! GET OUT OF MY GALLERY!"

At that point, Daniel knocked over the ladder.

As Yoko rushed to fix her piece of pseudointellectual pretension, Daniel and I hustled out of the gallery. The Beatles came out a few minutes later.

"Man, that Yoko bird was a bit psycho," said Paul. "Did ya see the way she screamed at that girl? I wouldn't want to get near anyone like that."

"Well, I thought that some of her pieces were very thought-provoking," said George.

"Meself, I thought it was dead boring," said Ringo. "That girl, though, the one that did the invisible bandage thing…she was funny."

"She was, wasn't she?" mused John. "Maybe she was part of the exhibit. Wish I could meet her."

On the way home, I was extremely excited. "Did you hear that? Ringo Starr said I was funny! And John Lennon said he wanted to meet me!"

Daniel just stuck his tongue out at me. I think he was jealous that I got to antagonize Yoko, and he was stuck with the staircase.


	3. Part III

This chapter's official song: "Nobody Told Me" by John Lennon

"Shit." Daniel was staring at the dashboard.

"What?" I peered over his shoulder, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

"We're out of gas." Daniel pointed at the fuel gauge. It was indeed on E.

"That sucks monkey balls. Where are we, then?"

"It says…1974. Aren't we in the middle of the fuel crisis?"

I checked the timeline book. "Yup. See, 1974—America is in the throes of a fuel crisis. Meanwhile, on the political front—"

"Watergate, I know." Daniel shook his head. "It's going to take us days to find enough gas to start up the car."

"But we're in England," I protested. "There wasn't any fuel crisis there."

"What are you talking about? If there's not enough gas in America, there's not going to be enough anywhere." Daniel got out of the car and looked around.

"I think it was an economic thing—" But Daniel was already striding off. I followed him. "Daniel, where are we?"

"Carnaby Street. If I remember what I read in that Abbie Hoffman book you gave me, there's a really famous crash pad around here." He walked up to a door and knocked a complicated pattern on it.

The door opened. "Who're you?"

"Just a couple of time travelers. Our ride ran out of gas, so we're stuck in '74."

"Yeah, whatever. Come on in."

We climbed up a set of creaking stairs to a huge loft. The walls were painted with rainbow designs, and there were cushions and overstuffed beanbag chairs scattered all over. It was sort of dark, and at first I couldn't tell who was there.

John Lennon waved at us. "Hey, it's the girl from Yoko's exhibition!"

I was amazed. "You remember me?"

"Sure I do! I wrote a song about you. It's called "Yoko's Invisible Hammer". Sit down, why don't you? These are my friends. Davie, Jimmy, Roger—but call him Pink. And Mick is probably in the bathroom, so don't go in there for a while."

I sat down on an empty chair. "Great to meet you guys. Um, this is my boyfriend Daniel."

Daniel was gaping at the assorted rock stars that sat around the room. "Wow. Hi."

"He's cute," said David Bowie. "Hey Dan, come sit over here, eh?"

"Weren't you listening? That's his girlfriend over there. How would you feel if some chick stole your…um…" Jimmy Page squinted at him. "Your guitar," he finished.

"Come off it, sweetheart," Bowie said.

Daniel looked petrified. "I, ah, should check with…"

I waved him off. "Go ahead, if you want."

"You heard the girl." Bowie pulled Daniel onto his lap and started nuzzling his neck. "Looks a little bit like you when you were younger, Lennon."

"I got enough of that from Eppie, all right?" John carefully lit up a joint. "Mick's been in there for a half hour already. Someone want to drag him out before he drowns in the toilet?"

I was just soaking it all in. Five of the most influential musicians of the 20th century in the same room, and I was right there with them. It was amazing.

Page got up and stuck his head in the bathroom door. "You all right, Mick?"

"Bleeeeeeeah." The sexy, virile, swivel-hipped lead singer of the most dangerous rock band in history stumbled out of the bathroom covered in his own vomit.

"Good, he's out." Bowie dragged my boyfriend into the bathroom. "Don't worry, I won't hurt him."

I listened to the stars talking. "I have the greatest respect, I mean that most sincerely," I told them all. "You guys are just fantastic—that is really what I think. And by the way, which one is Pink?"

Roger Waters blew up. "I told you not to call me that! I told you guys, you are not supposed to call me that! Who told her to call me that?"

I cringed. "Sorry," I said.

"Eh, it's okay. Come on in, dear girl, have a—have a joint, won't you? There's plenty to go around."

I shook my head. "I'd rather not."

"Why not?" asked Jimmy Page.

I shrugged. "Well, I never found a use for it. Some of my friends take it to enhance experiences, but what's the difference if you're high or not? The song remains the same."

"So it does." Jimmy nodded as if I had just said something very significant.

"You know what I wish?" John asked suddenly. "I wish George was here."

"What happened to him?"

"What, you don't know? He hooked up with Yoko from the art show. She got him started on heroin a few years ago, and he died the first time he tried it. Poor ol' George never did have much of a tolerance for drugs." John wiped a tear from his eye.

I tried very hard to ignore the cold feeling that had settled in my stomach. It was just occurring to me that messing around with time might have some effects that I hadn't anticipated.

Roger Waters sat up in his overstuffed chair. "So, you said you're a time traveler. What time are you from, exactly?"

"Um…2003."

Nobody seemed to be very surprised. I guess when you're stoned to the gills, little things are amazing and big things are humdrum.

"So what's it like then?" Mick asked.

"Well," I began, "there's this thing called the Internet…"

"That's not what he wants to hear about," interrupted Jimmy. "What happened to us?"

Mick glared at him. "You egotistical turd!"

John leaned forward. "Come on, I want to hear about this."

I gulped. "John, you're…um…Why don't we start with Mick, alright? Mick, you and the Stones are still touring. Roger, your music spawns an entire generation of electronica, which leads to ravers and stupid nightclubs that flash lights all over the place. And, um, John. You're dead. As far as I know."

John seemed to take this information very much in stride. "Aren't we all, all of us."

"No, I mean, dead. In 1980. Some nut with a gun killed you. There was…it was on TV! People were lighting candles and putting flowers on the spot where you died, and Yoko…" Another thing occurred to me: I didn't know what the future was like anymore. The one thing we did to change the past may have affected the future so badly that I wouldn't even recognize it. The very thought of it freaked me out—wait, maybe that was just the marijuana fumes.

Jimmy Page looked worried. "Am I dead? I hope I'm not dead. I don't really want to be dead."

"I'm pretty sure you're not dead," I assured him.

The door to the bathroom burst open. David Bowie poked his head out. "Uh…we need some help in here…"

I bolted up. "Shit. What happened?"

The rockstars rushed into the bathroom as Bowie babbled. "Honestly, we weren't even doing that much! He just fainted, his eyes rolled up in his head and he went fwump all over the floor. Is he dead? If he's dead we'd have to call someone…"

I shook Daniel's shoulder. He was lying on the floor, his hair spread out around him. His breathing was regular.

It struck me that he hadn't had anything to eat since half a cup of weak tea that afternoon. That must have been why he was being so unreasonable about the fuel crisis.

"It's okay, I know what's wrong. He's a diabetic. We just have to find his insulin…" Which we hadn't brought. Shit.

I rummaged in my purse until I found a PEZ candy. I crumbled it up and dropped it into his mouth. "God, please let this work…"

After a few minutes, Daniel blinked his eyes. "What the…"

The rockstars around me cheered. "All right! He's alive. We were worried about you, mate."

Daniel sat up. "We have to go home. Now."

"What? Why? What's wrong?"

"I had another out-of-body experience." Daniel has those sometimes, when he's sleeping or otherwise unconscious. "We have to go back to 2003. Now. It is very important. Something dreadful has occurred."

"What—" But Daniel was pulling my arm. As we headed down the stairs, I waved to the rock stars. "Bye, guys. See ya later."

They waved to me. "G'bye…See you…Ta, luv."

Daniel hustled me into the car and popped the clutch.

"It's a good thing that gas station was open," I said, trying to make conversation.

"We've got to get back. Something really bad has happened because we've been messing around with time."

"If something bad has happened, maybe we shouldn't go back," I said.

"But we have a responsibility to fix it."

"But if the bad thing that's happened is something big, we might not be able to fix it."

"We can always go back in time after we see what it is."

"What I mean is, what if the big thing that happened…What if it's World War III or something, and we all die from radiation poisoning the second we get out of the car, or the engine is disabled or something? Then we wouldn't be able to go back in time and fix it," I reasoned.

"Don't you want to see what happened?" Daniel asked. "I mean, we've just completely messed up the timeline. We should at least go see what happened."

Appealing to my curiosity never fails. I sat quietly as Daniel drove toward the present, dreading the future.


	4. Part IV

This chapter's official song: "Ringo Buys A Rifle" by the Dead Milkmen

Not much, at first, seemed to have changed. My house was the same as it ever was. My key worked on the door, so we went in.

There were signs of my family all over. Mom's school papers, Dad's magazines, Brian's cartoons, my books. I opened the fridge. The contents had not changed since I last looked.

I flopped down on the couch and turned on CNN as Daniel rifled through the pantry.

"This just in—several men in the peacekeeping effort in Vietnam have been killed. Again." The newscaster wiped the sweat from his brow. "We're here with the latest in the new Vietnam crisis."

"What the—Vietnam?" Daniel emerged from the kitchen, holding a chocolate donut. "How did this happen?"

There is something known in science fiction stories as "time traveler's serendipity". This is a handy plot device that ensures that any time traveler, when entering an alternate universe, will immediately be able to figure out exactly how this timeline is different from the one he or she came from. Usually, they manage to find a library or just happen to bump into a professor of history or a current-events buff. Sometimes, the information comes from a newspaper. Or from a newscast.

I guess that time traveler's serendipity was with us then. Maybe it's a function of the universe in order to ensure that whoever messes with the universe gets enough information to set it right again.

The screen split as the newscaster turned to someone in another room, a bald guy with glasses. "We're here with Professor Tim O'Brien, an expert on the Vietnam situation. Professor, can you tell us why President Dole has redeclared war?"

The bald guy cleared his throat. "Well, Chet, it all started in 1974 when President Nixon narrowly avoided being impeached by the Watergate scandal. In order to bolster his popularity, he upped the efforts on Vietnam, despite warnings by experts such as myself that sending more troops there was a very, very bad idea. The national opinion had been surprisingly positive toward the war, despite scattered protests—which were, I may add, dying down…"

I threw a pillow at the TV. "Goddamn it! We fucked up. We made sure that John and Yoko never got together. So they never shouted with bags over their heads or spent a week in bed."

"Yeah? So?"

"Daniel, those were protests against the Vietnam War."

"They were stupid protests."

"But they garnered a lot of publicity. People who wouldn't have otherwise protested thought it was cool and tried to emulate them."

Daniel stared at me. "Rachel, that's…Well, it's clearly not what happened. We got out of the war because the guys in Washington finally decided that it was a bad idea, that's all. The protests didn't have anything to do with it."

"True, they were pretty ineffectual. But it was ended more as a public relations move than anything. Without the protests, it must have gone on longer, and that…God, I can't even think about it!"

Daniel patted me on the shoulder. "Don't worry, okay? We can go back and stop ourselves from breaking them up."

"What is this all of a sudden? You were the one who was so freaked out about what to happen that we just had to go back, and now you're telling me not to worry?"

"Blood sugar." Daniel wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "I'm much calmer when I've eaten something. Want a donut?"

"No thanks. They make my teeth hurt."

I puttered around the kitchen for a while, flipped the TV on and off. Daniel was installing something in the time machine.

He came back and lifted me up. I shrieked. "Don't do that!"

He put me down and kissed me. "I put in a hydrogen fuel cell. We won't have to worry about gas again."

"Kick-ass!" I smooched him as a reward. "You know, displays of technical genius get me really turned on."

He thought I was joking. "Do you want to go fix up John and Yoko now?"

"Might as well."

"Great! Okay, here's the plan. We go back, stop ourselves from going into the exhibit, tell them what happens, and then go home."

"That, um, might not be a good idea."

"Why wouldn't it?"

I bit my lip. "Well…okay, so we tell our slightly younger selves what to do. They go home. And we…what do we remember? Where do we go back to? I mean, they're already there, where we're supposed to be…You understand what I'm getting at, don't you?"

Daniel frowned. "Yeah, sort of. So instead we have to go back, find John and Yoko directly after we leave, get them together somehow despite the fact that John clearly now thinks that Yoko is a crazy bitch, and make sure that they get together."

"Yep."

"How the fuck are we going to do that?"

"Well, we're going to need to get a lot of shredded marijuana into little bags."

"What, you mean like Ziploc bags?"

"What are we, Jay and Silent Bob? No, I mean like tea bags."

Daniel sighed. "Not gonna work."

"What do you mean, not gonna work? You haven't even listened to my plan yet."

"Rachel, I can see exactly where this is going and I really don't think it's a good idea."

I folded my arms. "Fine. What exactly am I going to do?"

"You're going to get John and Yoko together for tea, give them pot tea instead, making them mellow and thus more receptive to each other."

"Well, yeah," I admitted. "But how is that a bad idea? It should work perfectly."

"Rachel," Daniel explained patiently, "John and Yoko are both used to marijuana. It won't make them any more mellow."

"Then what are we going to do?"

"Well, the basic principle is sound. We just need something stronger."

"Huh. Would acid work?"

Daniel frowned. I could practically see images of things melting away going through his head.

"LSD, you geek. Lyso…lyso something. Diamethaline, I don't know."

He shook his head. "No, John's used to acid too. I think we may need…"

"Don't say heroin. Please do not say heroin. That's clearly not a good idea."

"I was going to say mushrooms. Not portabellas, so please do not make any stupid jokes."

"Amanita muscaria, right? Psychotropic drugs!" I pumped my fist in the air. "Those are fun."

"How would you know?"

"I wouldn't, but I have a book of Peter Max paintings that he probably did when he was on acid, and they're pretty good paintings."

Daniel shook his head. "You are unbelievable. So how do we get the acid anyway?"

"I think Brian can probably make some. He spends half of his time in the lab at school anyway. Oh, and did I tell you that he's learning how to grow marijuana?"

"He is? Where'd he get the materials?"

"Where do you think? He goes to North Farmington."

"Okay, good point. Still, it's sort of a stupid idea."

"Why? He can probably whip up a batch in a few minutes."

"Are you kidding? If he got caught, he could go to jail."

I considered this. "Fine. No acid. Then what the hell do we do?"

"I think," Daniel said, "that we play it by ear."


	5. Part V

This chapter's official song: "No, No, No" by Yoko Ono

Daniel dropped me off at the gallery. It was dark, but the doors were unlocked. I slipped inside.

Yoko was sitting on a chair in the center of the gallery. Her long black hair was covering her face, but I could tell that she was holding her head in her hands, and her whole body was shaking.

I tapped her on the shoulder. "Excuse me, Yoko-chan?"

She looked up at me. Her face was stained with tears. "Nobody has called me Yoko-chan since I was five. Why does the person who wrecked my show and stole my chance at happiness call me that?"

I sat on the floor in front of the chair. "I…" On the way to the gallery, in the car, I had decided to tell her the bald truth—that I was from the future and that she had to protest the Vietnam War. Sitting on the floor with a crying artist, this course of action just seemed stupid.

"I wanted to apologize for wrecking your show," I said.

Yoko shrugged. "Actually, it's okay. What you did made me think about what I've been doing." She sighed. "People don't understand my art—to tell you the truth, I don't understand some of it myself. I sometimes work for hours at a time thinking up things and then I wake up and I don't know what they mean. But it seems like they should have some kind of artistic significance, so I keep them."

That made sense to me. After all, who, when sober, can understand the justification behind things you did when you're stoned?

"Oh, I'm a failure as an artist," Yoko wailed. "If I can't even understand my own art, then what's the point?"

I winced. She had a really piercing and annoying wail. It was even worse than her singing.

"Yoko-chan, you have much more to contribute. If you got involved in politics, you could still change the world." That, of course, was the fateful sentence. I honestly meant nothing more by that than maybe getting involved in a few protests. But of course she wouldn't take it that way.

Yoko immediately brightened up. "Politics. Of course." She wiped her eyes. "Thank you. What is your name?"

"Rachel."

"Rachel-chan, thank you. That is a very good idea." She got up and bowed to me. I bowed back.

Yoko hugged me. "Maybe I will see you again sometime," she whispered in my ear. "But for now, thank you. I will take your advice."

I left feeling somewhat disoriented.

Daniel met me with the car outside the gallery. "So, how'd it go?"

"Yoko was crying," I said.

Daniel grinned. "Sounds good to me."

"No, she was really sad. I felt bad for her."

"So what did you do?"

"I suggested that she get involved in politics."

Daniel almost choked. "You what?"

I decided it was time to change the subject. "So what did you do?"

Daniel sighed. "Don't even ask. They were all on acid and they wouldn't listen to a word I said."

"That's too bad. What did you say, anyway?"

"I told John that Yoko would make him the happiest man alive."

I started banging my head against the dashboard. "You—are—a—dumbshit."

"Well, what was I supposed to do?"

"You could have told him…You know what, I don't know. It doesn't really matter, I guess."

"You sound exactly like he did when he told me to fuck off." Daniel started up the motor.

"Yoko Ono is now a United States senator. What have you unleashed upon the world?" Daniel turned the TV off. "You know, you should have told me what you were planning to do."

"Why? I would have done it even if you thought it was a bad idea! Anyway, we've gotten her out of the recording studio and into the Senate, and she's done a lot of good." I was pacing back and forth on the carpet. "I mean, did you see that list of bills she pushed for? Environmental laws. Pacifist foreign policy. And I don't know if she had anything to do with it, but Ralph Nader is now the President. How can you possibly say that's bad?"

Daniel looked at the ceiling. "Fine. Fine, you win. John Lennon is alive and Yoko-less and the Green Party is in charge. The world is wonderful."

"Yeah." I stared at the dark screen. "The world is wonderful."

Daniel snuggled up to me. "So. Feel like celebrating?"

"I don't know," I said. "I just feel like there's something missing."

"What? We have a live genius and a harpy who doesn't sing and Bush isn't the president. What could possibly be missing?"

I sat up. "I want to go back."

"To what?"

"To 1974 and that crash pad. I feel like there's something important that I can find there."

Daniel thought about this. "Can I bring a couple of friends? Faina wants to meet Gloria Steinem."

"What, are you nuts? An activist like Steinem wouldn't be caught dead with a bunch of rock strutters."

"Would too."

"Just shut up. We're going."

"Hey, I wonder if Andy Warhol will be there?"

"He wasn't last time."


	6. Part VI

This chapter's official song: "2,000 Light-Years From Home" by the Rolling Stones

"We're here!" Daniel leapt out of the car. "This is great. Come on, we can spend as much time here as we like now that we got everything straightened out." He went up and knocked on the door.

"Daniel! And Rachel! Wonderful to see you two again." John grinned at us from a crack in the door. "Hey everyone, the diabetic boy and that girl who tells the future are here."

"Lovely Daniel, eh?" David Bowie stuck his head out. "You're back. Come in." He grabbed the front of Daniel's shirt and yanked him in.

Daniel grinned weakly at me. "Um…"

I waved him off. "It's okay. Have fun with the Martian transvestite. I have some business to take care of."

"What, you're not coming in? Roger's been talking about you for a week. He really likes you," John said.

I hesitated. It was tempting, but I had to see if my intuitions were right. "I'll come back in a little while, okay?"

I walked over to the gallery. It was bustling with activity; there were sleeping bags on the floor and tables where people were talking on phones and making signs.

I wandered in. "Um, hello. Who's in charge of…whatever this is?"

A girl with a flower tattoo on the side of her face pointed to the back of the gallery. "She's back there."

"Who is?"

The girl looked at me like I was stupid. "Ms. Ono. She's back there."

I made my way to the back of the gallery. "Yoko-chan, are you there? It's me, Rachel-chan."

"Rachel-chan!" Yoko grabbed me from behind and swept me into a hug. "I've been wondering what happened to you."

I smiled. She looked a lot better than she did on the "Two Virgins" album. In fact, she was absolutely beautiful.

Hmm. Those were words I never thought I would think in conjunction with Yoko Ono. Perhaps the only reason I had hated her before was that she'd gotten the blame for breaking up the Beatles.

I decided not to think about that. "I just came to check on you. It looks like you've gotten your life together pretty well."

"Yes! I have. And it is all thanks to you." Yoko led me into a sparsely furnished back room with a white sofa, an interesting coffee table, and a kitchenette. "Sit down. Would you like some tea?" Yoko bustled around in the kitchen. It was all very cozy and domestic. "You kept me from wasting my life on art that didn't mean anything. I am running for a seat in the British parliament now."

"Are you kidding? With the National Front you'll never get elected. Try running for a Senate seat in America; those are easier to get."

"Again you have inspired me." Yoko set the tea tray on the coffee table and sat down cross-legged on the couch facing me. "Do you know what my name means?"

I mentally ran through all the Japanese I knew. Sushi, sashimi, wasabi, hentai, shounen ai, bishounen, bukkake, and sake—all I could think of were things to eat or things you'd find in the back of a seedy comic shop. "Doesn't it mean Ocean Child?" I asked, grasping at straws.

Yoko shook her head. "My family name, Ono, means "on the side". The Ono family has always been on the side of everything, watching from the sidelines. And my given name, Yoko, is a type of battleaxe." She carefully poured tea into two small cups. "A battleaxe worn on the side. My parents named me that so that I would be a formidable weapon, but for someone else. Extra attack power, you could say." She picked up a cup and sipped it. "A while ago I saw a play. I don't remember who it was by, but there was a lady in it who was trying to get her husband to kill people so that he could become a king."

"Macbeth, right?"

"Yes, that was it. I always thought that I would grow up to be that lady—a weapon at the side. But you have helped me to become my own weapon." She put the cup down and smiled. "I have been waiting to see you again. I had to tell you how much that one meeting meant to me."

This was starting to get a little weird. "I want to ask you something too, Yoko-chan. Why is it that I made such an impression on you?"

Yoko thought for a minute. When she spoke again, her voice was low. "Because I knew that you didn't belong there. You and that boy you were with—I could tell by looking at you that you had gone from somewhere that you belonged to someplace you should not have been able to go, and that you were there for a very important reason. I don't know what it was about you, but I could sense."

I took a deep breath and grabbed the sides of my head. "Oh crap. Not this. Not metaphysics. Anything but this," I mumbled. "Let me mess up the future so badly that the world is taken over by ficus plants. Let me destroy the entire space-time continuum. But why does it have to be this New Age Deepak Chopra synchronicity shit? This can't be the true nature of the universe."

Yoko put her hand on my shoulder. "Rachel-chan, what is wrong?"

I sat up. "I'm sorry. I think I've made a terrible mistake."

Yoko gazed into my eyes. "No you haven't. How can this be anything but good?"

"I don't know, I don't know, I don't know! There's just something terribly wrong. Daniel and I—"

"Yes, where is he?"

"He's…um…He's screwing David Bowie right now," I admitted.

Yoko sat up in surprise. "He's cheating on you? With another man? When you're here?"

"It's David "Ziggy Stardust" Bowie," I explained. "And if I know my RPS pairings, Mick Jagger is helping them out."

Yoko sort of stared at me in shock. Her jaw was hanging open.

I waved my hand in front of her face. "Yoko-chan? Are you there?" When she didn't respond, I gently reached over and closed her mouth.

Yoko grabbed my hand and raised my fingers to her lips.

Oh. My. God. Daniel did that sometimes, but it was entirely different when she did it.

She put my hand down. "Rachel-chan, I know you are from another time. But please, I want you to stay here with me. You can help me; you know what's going to happen. You can tell me what to do. Your influence is great."

I took a deep breath, shakily. "I don't know…"

Yoko cupped my face in her hands. "Please. Stay with me. Together we can change the world. Imagine!" Her eyes were shining.

I rolled off the couch. "No!" I yelled. "This is all wrong. All of it. None of this is supposed to happen!" I stood up and brushed myself off. "I have to go change this."

Yoko got up and wrapped her arms around my waist from behind. I could feel her breath on the back of my neck. "This is supposed to happen. It wouldn't have happened if it wasn't supposed to happen."

I closed my eyes. "There's nothing that can be but the way it's meant to be," I murmured. "But John never wrote that, not here."

"What? Who's John? What are you talking about?" Yoko bent her head and kissed the back of my neck.

This wasn't right. A woman I had despised for years, a woman who was in an entirely different form in my time, a woman that I had helped to create was sending shivers up my spine.

I broke her grasp and ran. "I have to go. I'm sorry."

I ran all the way to the car, gasping for breath once I got there. Daniel had left the keys in the ignition, assuming, correctly, that nobody would steal a car if there was no way to get fuel for it.

I climbed in and sat behind the driver's wheel.

Then I started it up.

Time is a mess, isn't it? A time traveler can barely hope to keep track of where she is, what universes she has created, what changes in the timeline she has introduced. Or even where she is.

I think I'm in Michigan right now. Or I might be in England. Or Australia. Or on another planet. I haven't bothered to check the odometer, so I don't know when I am, but I'm pretty sure I'm far in the future because the sun is really low and really red and isn't moving and there are huge purple crab-things all over the place. Just like in the H.G. Wells book.

Daniel's still having fun with Bowie and Mick. I don't think he'll even notice I'm gone. Yoko's still in the back room, probably drinking tea. One of the advantages of time travel is that since you can go back to whatever time you want, you can safely assume that everything's frozen in time. You don't think in such a linear way, here in a time machine.

Maybe I'll stay here for a while. The crabs are pretty cool to watch. Maybe I'll go back home, where there is tea and sitcoms. Maybe I'll go to the ancient past and do some research for that project we're supposed to be doing on the _Iliad_ in English class. Maybe I'll set the time machine on cruise control and drift though the eons until the universe collapses from heat-death and entropy.

I just need some time to sort everything out, is all.


End file.
